THE REAL PROTEGE

Shinsei stepped forward and spoke in a low, even tone.

"We will begin with elemental sense. Wind and fire. Then barrier manipulation."

He placed a crystal orb between the twins. It pulsed faintly, attuned to their aura.

"Breathe," Ling Li instructed.

As they exhaled, the orb flickered — once with silver light, once with gold.

Ling Li's eyes narrowed.

"Split potential," she murmured. "Kim Kim carries dominion. Chin Chin carries chaos."

Four Eyes nearly dropped the blades.

"Chaos?"

Ling Li smirked faintly. "Untamed power, not corruption. But it must be honed quickly."

She turned to her daughters.

"From this day forward, you train at sunrise. Elemental invocation. Sword tracing. Sigil shielding. No excuses."

The girls looked at each other.

"Does that mean I get my crystal sword now?" Kim Kim asked.

Ling Li laughed softly. "Once you earn it."

==========

Dale's Dream Rites: A Sorcerer's Descent

Far away, deep in the subterrain of an abandoned monastery, Enchanted Dale descended into darker rites.

His injuries remained — bandaged in cursed cloth and smeared with soul glue — but his obsession burned hotter than ever. He stood before a shattered altar of dreamstone, powdered bone scattered like ash.

He raised his hands.

"You sealed their aura in waking," he hissed, voice low and cracked. "But dreams… dreams are mine."

Enchanted Dale slit his palm again, letting blood drip into a basin filled with sleeproot and dark lotus. The mixture hissed, burning smoke into the chamber, and Enchanted Dale whispered invocations older than war.

He summoned the Veil Eater — a forbidden dream serpent that slithered between the minds of the young and unguarded. It coiled above the basin, flickering between real and unreal.

"Find the twins. Enter their sleep. Press against their fear. I do not need their power yet — just a crack. Just curiosity."

The serpent hissed, then vanished into smoke — carried by dream winds toward the Li Estate.

==========

The First Night: Ling Li Senses the Infiltration

That night, as the twins slept beneath silken veils of protection, Kim Kim twitched once — her breath catching.

Inside her dream, a corridor twisted unnaturally. Shapes danced. A slingshot grew too heavy. A whisper curled around her ears.

"Do you want power?"

Kim Kim gasped — but Ling Li was already awake, kneeling in meditation outside the chamber, her spiritual threads attuned to their dreams.

Ling Li opened her eyes. Her immortal aura surged violently.

Inside the dream, the corridor shattered. A silver blade of wind pierced the air — cutting through Enchanted Dale's whisper and severing the serpent's tongue.

Kim Kim woke with a jolt, heart racing.

Ling Li entered the twins' room.

"Did he speak to you?"

Kim Kim nodded. "He said… 'power.'"

Ling Li brushed her daughter's hair, pressing a glowing sigil onto her forehead.

"Then it begins." Ling Li whispered.

Dawn Invocation: Twin Dragons Stir

In the eastern grove, the morning air was crisp with anticipation.

Kim Kim and Chin Chin knelt within twin circles of dragon salt and moonfire ash, their palms upturned as Shinsei adjusted the pulse orb between them. It flickered once in recognition, then steadied —each girl now casting her own wavelength into the ether.

Ling Li stood at the edge, her robe radiant with elemental glyphs drawn by her own immortal hand. Beside her, Four Eyes held a scroll containing training sequences layered for split affinity. Though he pretended to read stoically, his eyes flicked nervously between his daughters.

"Begin," Ling Li commanded.

Chin Chin inhaled sharply and whispered the sigil of directional fire. Her breath turned into a flame ribbon that coiled mid-air before flickering out.

Kim Kim raised her hand. The wind curled through her fingers like silk, lifting a handful of magnolia petals that danced in suspended motion before falling.

Shinsei hummed softly.

"They respond like twins in song —harmonies blooming from different tones."

Four Eyes muttered under his breath.

"Just as long as they don't burn down the grove."

Ling Li allowed herself the briefest smile.

Then her face turned serious. She knelt beside Kim Kim and pressed two fingers to her forehead.

"Do you feel anyone watching?"

Kim Kim blinked.

"Not in the room… but in the dream."

Chin Chin nodded.

"Mine too. Last night, there was a voice behind a mirror that didn't reflect me."

Shinsei stepped forward, alarm flickering in his expression.

"They're pushing through the veil again."

Ling Li rose, voice steel-bound.

"Tonight, we erect the dream fortress. And tomorrow, I begin their astral defense rites. If Enchanted Dale attempts another breach, he'll enter not innocence —but war."

==========

Dale's Descent: Ritual of the Dream Harvest

Inside his ruined sanctum, Dale's body convulsed, veins bulging with poisons harvested from the Veil Eater's failed invasion. The serpent had returned broken, severed mid-thought by an immortal force. It hissed once before disintegrating in front of his feet.

Enchanted Dale staggered to his altar, panting.

"She severed it," Enchanted Dale growled. "She severed me."

His fingers plunged into a basin of bloodroot and mirrorleaf. New runes pulsed beneath the liquid's surface.

"Then I won't speak through mirrors. I'll become them."

He raised his hands and began a forbidden spell: Dream Binding Through Ancestral Regret. It created spectral clones of himself drawn from old grief —projected into the dreams of those with dormant bloodlines.

Not to harm.

Not yet.

But to seduce, deceive, and twist the threads of identity from within.

==========

Nightfall: Ling Li Prepares the Fortress

That evening, Ling Li spread the scroll of Dream Warding across the rooftop shrine. With Four Eyes on her left and Shinsei opposite, they invoked the ancient glyphs passed down only through immortal whisper.

Eight spirit candles were lit.

The wind bent unnaturally.

And through the mist, shadows flinched and retreated.

Kim Kim and Chin Chin slept beneath the newly woven veil, their foreheads glowing faintly. Within their dreams, paths began to form —no longer corridors of confusion, but gardens of memory protected by sigils in their handwriting.

Ling Li turned to Shinsei.

"Tomorrow, they begin astral walk."

Shinsei nodded.

"And soon… they will meet themselves."

First Astral Defense Rite: When Innocence Faces the Beyond

The astral chamber was nothing like the grove.

Carved deep beneath the Li Estate, it was an ancient sanctum veined with flickering soulstone and celestial quartz. The air buzzed with dormant power, its silence broken only by breath and intention.

Kim Kim and Chin Chin stood in the center of the circular platform, both barefoot, clad in layered ceremonial tunics woven with phoenix silk and reinforced with light-binding threads. The twin sigils on their foreheads shimmered faintly, the ink still fresh from Ling Li's midnight inscription.